Chapter Forty-FourAnna looked out of her bedroom window. The view was of a small, shared courtyard and then beyond to an alleyway that stretched along the back of the row of houses, and it was a commotion in the alleyway that caught her attention and caused her to scowl.
A group of teenagers wearing a variety of hoodies, tracksuits and ball-caps were tormenting a cat that belonged to the lady downstairs. The cat had managed to scamper away from them and into some bushes lining one side of the walkway. The group were currently kicking and prodding sticks at the bushes in an attempt to flush it out.
Anna had had run-ins with the group before. A tall boy with gangly limbs and a cigarette between his lips, who was thrashing at the bush with a stick, used to be in the year below her at school
